BMW intends to sell one million electrified vehicles by 2021

BMW has sold more electrified vehicles than any other manufacturer in Germany so far this year.

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BMW Group recently announced that it intends to have one million electrified vehicles on roads by 2021. This plan was revealed by Oliver Zipse, chairman of board of management, BMW AG, at the ongoing Frankfurt Motor Show. Speaking at the occasion, Oliver highlighted that BMW has already sold a large number of EVs and has sold more EVs than any other manufacturer in Germany so far this year. He further added that in Norway, three out of four BMW vehicles sold have an electrified powertrain, pointing at an increase in demand for electrified vehicles in near future.

In fact, the German automaker thinks by 2030, over 50 per cent of premium vehicles sold in China will be fully electric. However, the same for Europe and the USA will possibly stand at around 25 per cent. This difference in adoption of electric vehicles can be attributed to a number of reasons like government policies, charging infrastructure, customer preferences, etc.

BMW is aggressively pursuing electric mobility and will have 25 electrified vehicles in its portfolio by 2023. The company had initially set 2025 as the target to achieve this. However, the timeline was preponed by two years as the company developed flexible vehicle architectures which could underpin different kinds of EVs like fully-electric ones as well as plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The automaker will also focus on hydrogen fuel-cell technology as it belives it to be the "real solution" to cleaner mobility. BMW expects hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to be in demand by the second half of the next decade and intends to launch a test fleet of fuel-cell vehicles by 2022.

Oliver Zipse said, "The BMW Group is a global company. We will be able to offer our customers all relevant drive technologies: our conventional engines with benchmark efficiency, battery-electric drive trains, plug-in hybrids and, in the future, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. This puts us in a very strong strategic position to tackle the challenges of future mobility and climate change."

The latest electric vehicle to come out of BMW's stable will be the iX3 electric SUV which will be launched next year. The iX3, interestingly, makes use of cobalt for its battery cell and is equipped with fifth generation e-drive system, which, the company noted, is made without using any rare earth metal.